It is a busy first day of action at the UK Open at Butlins in Minehead on Friday as the opening four rounds of the tournament get put in the books across two hectic and crazy sessions of play in the first televised ranking event of the year.
We have to wait until the fourth round in the evening session for the leading 32 players in the world to enter the fray. Sadly time restrictions will mean we can’t preview that part of the day, but we can look at the first three rounds in the afternoon session.
Sign up to 888sport BEFORE Saturday, bet £10 on anything to get a £5 free bet on EACH of Saturday’s Premier League fixtures – £35 free bets! Click the image above to bet. Use code PL35. 18+ New accounts only. T&Cs apply
First Round
The players currently ranked 97-128 in the Order of Merit are joined by the 16 Challenge Tour qualifiers and the 16 pub qualifiers for the first round of the tournament this year. Despite the big names coming in later in the day, there are still some fairly big names on show right from the off down in Minehead.
Wes Newton almost won this tournament in 2011 when he lost to James Wade in the final and he goes up against Cameron Menzies in the first round this year having come through one of the pub qualifiers. Former BDO number one Mark McGeeney, Jamie Hughes, Andy Jenkins, Diogo Portela, Matt Clark and Michael Barnard are also in right from the start.
Second Round
The first round winners are joined in the second round by the players who are currently ranked 65-96 in the world rankings which means some of the bigger names begin to filter into the competition, with all eyes being on one in particular when the BDO world champion Glen Durrant makes his first appearance in a TV event as an official PDC player.
He’ll face a first round winner on the main stage while the likes of Wayne Jones, Arron Monk, Mark Dudbridge, Dirk van Duijvenbode and the semi-finalist from 12 months ago Robert Owen all begin their campaign in this particular round. They will all be looking to win into the third round where they are one more win from the big boys.
Third Round
Those who win in the second round make it into the last round of matches in the afternoon where they are joined by players ranked 33-64 in the current Order of Merit and there are some pretty big names who enter the tournament at this stage of proceedings, including the dancing man himself Dimitri Van den Bergh.
Ricky Evans, Nathan Aspinall and Luke Humphries will battle for the young brigade in this round while former Lakeside finalist Danny Noppert starts his quest in this round of the tournament. Winmau World Masters winner in the past Krzysztof Ratajski also begins in this round as does last week’s Premier League contender Steve Lennon. Chris Dobey, Mark Webster, Jeffrey de Zwaan, Christian Kist, Robert Thornton, Keegan Brown and Justin Pipe all start in the third round.
[the_ad_group id=”3624″]
Betting
This isn’t really an afternoon to go mad on but there are a couple of bets I like over the course of the piece. Former BDO star Mark McGeeney has begun his PDC life pretty well and I think he’ll have the beating of Dave Pallett, assuming he doesn’t go mad with missed doubles. Pallett made the semi-final here last year but still fell off the tour which highlights how poor the rest of the last two years have been for him. He gets credit for getting his card back but he hasn’t pulled up any trees on the floor recently. McGeeney is in the PDC on merit and deserves to be here. He can highlight why here.
Mark Dudbridge is in decent nick at the minute as well and I think he’ll have too much for a Mark Wilson who hasn’t won a single match yet in 2019. He has competed in all six Players Championship events and he’s lost in the first round of all of them. Admittedly he hasn’t always had the kindest of draws but even so that isn’t great. Dudbridge actually made the last 16 of a floor event last month where he went out to MVG, but not before he won three legs. He was banging in ton plus averages in that event and if he has saved one here he’ll have too much for Wilson.
Tips
WON – Back M.McGeeney to beat D.Pallett for a 4/10 stake at 1.73 with 888sport
Back him here:
WON – Back M.Dudbridge (-1.5 legs) to beat M.Wilson for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with Coral
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2019
